


The ninetieth letter

by Satoko_flo



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Multi, Post-Crisis Core (Compilation of FFVII), Pre-FFVII, Tseng POV, Tseng is super angsty and dramatic, Tseng needs a hug, and all those plot holes, but he's in a bad mood, but i couldn't help it, i don't understand it, originally written in French, preferably from Rufus, this wasn't supposed to turn this tsengru, translated work, what is that timeline?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:53:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29414427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satoko_flo/pseuds/Satoko_flo
Summary: Turks have to write a letter of apology if they fail a mission. That's what Tseng does when he fails to rescue Zack Fair.
Relationships: Rufus Shinra/Tseng (implied), Tseng & Aerith Gainsborough, Tseng & Zack Fair, Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough (mentionned)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	The ninetieth letter

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this fic in French and I personnaly translated it into English with an online translator. English is not my first language so apologies in advance for the errors.
> 
> Some inacuracies are intended. Others are not because the timeline of the compilation doesn't make any sense, without speaking about the plot holes. For that too, I apologize.
> 
> Also, in the Japanese version of the remake, Marle says to Cloud he has been there since the day before yesterday. I choose to stick with that information in the fic :)

_D-1 before the explosion of reactor no.1_

_Shinra Tower, floor 67, laboratory no.1_

Zack Fair's body was lying dead under his eyes.

His face, framed by the metal zipper slides of the body bag in which he had been wrapped, was bluish with death, and so inexpressive that Tseng found it hard to believe that it was Zack Fair, and not some stranger he was watching. No one had closed his eyelids, and under his long black eyelashes, Tseng could see the semicircle of his irises reflecting the toxic glow of the Mako that had soaked his entire body; they threw two sinister beams on his cheeks wet by the sudden downpour that had rained down on the Midgar plain and highlands. Unless that film of moisture was the result of his tears. Had he been crying? Tseng wouldn't blame him: his bloody chest was riddled with more bullet holes than he could count. Under his ripped leather harness was a shredded piece of blood-soaked paper stuck to his chest. Tseng knew immediately that this was the eighty-ninth and last letter Aerith had written to him.

Heidegger's laughter shot through the fog of his mind. "Congratulations on the success of your mission, Turk" he exclaimed. "It wasn't an easy one, but once again you didn't disappoint us."

Tseng mobilized all his strength to receive the compliment in the usual manner: he bowed his head with modesty, hoping that his face showed no other emotion than the reserved courtesy he appeared to show at each of his meetings with his superiors. The president, who was standing beside Heidegger, seemed to be satisfied with his reaction, for he immediately followed up: "Good. Professor Hojo, the body is yours."

Tseng's entrails were furiously knotted at the mention of the name of the director of the Science Research Division. Busy as he was fighting the storm of emotion that was ravaging him from within, he had forgotten his sticky presence, which haunted one corner of the room. The man slipped up to Zack, his disturbing grin clinging to his lips. As he stooped over the body, his hands clasped in ecstasy, locks of his greasy hair brushed against the young man's face, and Tseng tensed up, feeling as if the very touch of the madman soiled Zack's body.

"Five years of brewing..." Hojo whispered in a pensive tone. A subtle but undeniable note of delight pierced through. Tseng shivered with disgust. Hojo was about to dissect and corrupt what was left of Zack, and there was nothing he could do to prevent this slander, just as there was nothing he could do to prevent the SOLDIER from lying on that funeral table. Perhaps the next degenerate creature that these filthy labs would spit out and that he would meet in Midgar's mud would be partly made up of pieces of Zack. Tseng felt his stomach turn over.

He didn't notice the movement sketched by the president and Heidegger until the latter again made the air vibrate with his gravelly voice.

"I await your report, Turk."

A "well, sir" was in order, but his throat was too tightly knotted, so he just nodded. He hoped he had nodded. In any case, his superiors seemed satisfied and left the room without further ado. The banging of the door against the jamb, the slamming of the latch against the strike plate: Tseng received these ordinary sounds in a shock that took his breath away. That was it. The president and Heidegger were relieved of Zack Fair, as if they had seen and approved a document. It was nothing more than a case closed among many others.

Hojo turned on himself, whispering his aberrations in his hand and created a continuous rustle that eroded Tseng's reason. For the first time since his eyes had laid on Zack's dead body, his mind cleared and he knew, with stunning certainty, that he was going to kill Hojo. He had to get out of the room. Now.

His eyes fell on the torn and bloody letter sticking out of the leather harness. He grabbed it with a light gesture, unbeknownst to the scientist, and left the mortuary room with stiff legs. He closed the door behind him.

That was the end of Zack Fair.

*

_H-12 before the explosion of reactor no.1_

_Sector 0, building assigned to the Public Safety_

He was thinking about Zack's parents. Cissnei, who had watched over them over the past few years, had repeatedly told him of the incomprehension and sorrow that animated them: where was their son? Why didn't they have any more news about him? What had happened to him? If he had died during a mission, Shinra would have informed them, wouldn't it?

He couldn't let them know what had happened to their son, the "Zack Fair case" was classified as a defense secret. And even so: would they believe him, without a body to accept his death and begin the mourning process? He clenched his fists in frustration at the idea that Zack would not be entitled to a decent funeral when a worldwide tribute had been paid to Sephiroth, the "war hero".

"Sir?"

Tseng suddenly raised his head in surprise. His informant stood on the other side of the table and looked at him, a little worried. Tseng pulled himself together, dismayed to have lowered his vigilance and to have offered himself, all vulnerable, to the hands of a quidam.

"Excuse me. Please begin." The man swallowed his confusion and nodded. Suddenly he became excited and, very pleased with himself, he said: "A guy arrived last night and Tifa took him in. From what I understand, he's a former SOLDIER 1st class who left the ranks and has been working as a mercenary ever since."

Tseng felt a twitch in his eyelid. What was left of the very last SOLDIER 1st class was being meticulously dissected in the Shinra Tower labs at this very moment. The common people had lost interest in the SOLDIERs when the most famous of them, Sephiroth, had "tragically disappeared in combat" five years earlier. Perhaps even more indifferent were the slums dwellers, who had too much contempt for Shinra to care about anything but the more concrete and urgent matters of their daily lives - especially at a time where the height of the war against Wutai and the glory of SOLDIERs had passed for years; at times of peace, SOLDIERs were not on the front pages of the newspapers. Tseng was not surprised that most of the less awake people were completely unaware that no second class had been promoted since Zack Fair. The mythomaniac Tifa Lockhart had taken in was certainly not the first to have taken on the reputation of the Shinra's elite warriors in an attempt to extricate himself from the desperate misery of the slums.

The synchronicity between this event and Zack's death, however, shook him.

"Barrett hired him", the informant said. "The guy's got a huge sword in his back, like, as big as he is. I can't believe a human being can carry something like that without being hindered. But hey, I guess that's the kind of thing SOLDIERs can do."

Tseng's heart was stumbling in his chest. He put his hands on the table and slowly straightened up in his seat, nailing his informant's eyes. Anxiety gripped the informant and his facial features sagged. His body was shaken in a strange jerk, as if he was trying to move backwards.

"Physical description."

The offender was destabilized by the unexpected change in tone and his irises wobbled strangely. "I only saw him from a distance," he managed to pronounce. "He has spiky blond hair. Of average height..."

"The name of this man", Tseng cut. He was eagerly leaning over the metal table, his gloved fingertips stuck to the smooth surface.

"Uh... that's a weird name." He squinted his eyes with concentration before attempting: "Like Skyyy..."

Tseng's heart missed a beat. "Cloud. Cloud Strife."

'That's it!" cried the simpleton, pointing at him. "Cloud Strife! Do you know him? Well, that's normal, I guess, if he's a former SOLDIER." A pause, then, incredulous: "Fuck!"

"You're going to tell me everything you know, from the very beginning and in every detail."

The offender's outburst of excitement was again mowed down by Tseng's deep and implacable voice. The man swallowed noisily and anxiety reappeared on his face. Overwhelmed with nervousness, he was fidgeting in a grotesque manner. His eyes trembled under the pressure of Tseng's.

"Well, I don't know much more," he sputtered. "Apparently Tifa found him at the train station and since he wasn't feeling well, she welcomed him into her home. You know, that's the way she is. And then, because he was a SOLDIER, Barrett hired him, to help the militia with the monsters roaming the slums." He got excited again. "But it's actually for AVALANCHE, right?"

Listening to this deconstructed, imprecise and methodless report was such a frustration that Tseng felt the absurd need to classify the invisible files that piled up in bulk on the table there, right before his eyes. He took a deep breath.

 _It's not his fault_ , he reasoned. _He's not a Turk. I can't expect him to have the application and thoroughness that had been inflicted to me with a stick_. He had to invoke all the phlegm he possessed to drown his discomfort. Then, with a calm tone, he asked: "Around what time did he arrive in the slums?"

"I don't know. In the evening."

"Was he alone?"

"I don't know, I think so. It was all about him."

"What about his behavior? Does he seem healthy, mentally?"

"Uh... I don't know," the offender said, frowning in perplexity. "I only saw him from a distance."

"You've already said that" Tseng grew impatient. "The _rumors_."

"I don't know!" replied the other, defensively. He, too, seemed to be unable to bear the tension within him. "No one said anything about that. That must mean the guy's normal, right? Besides, if he was a wreck, Barrett wouldn't even have hired him, right?"

Tseng clenched his fists to the table and finally took his eyes off the simpleton. He stared at the gray metal plan, his heart pounding, and tried to grasp the implications of everything he had just learned from the Sector 7 slums informant. The man wouldn't keep quiet, tough.

"He's actually a deserter, isn't he? Like a dangerous madman wanted in all Midgar? But then, Tifa, my love, my light, is in danger!"

Tseng jumped out of his seat. From the corner of his eye, he saw the delinquent move backwards. The leader of the Turks put his hands flat on the table again and gave himself a few seconds to stabilize his moods.

"Do you have any other informations to share with me about the slums?" He didn't need any other information right away, but sticking to the routine of these interviews, to that formal question, helped clear his mind.

"Uh... no, I don't see."

"Very well."

Tseng stood up and opened the only drawer on the small table and pulled out a small purse. He went around the piece of furniture and stood in front of the informant.

"You have nothing to fear, Shinra is there to protect Midgar and its inhabitants" he said, mechanically. "Do not change anything of your usual behavior. You know what awaits you and your family if anyone suspects you are spying for the company."

The simpleton nodded his head, a dramatic gravity slapped on his face. Then his eyes began to twinkle again and he asked, overexcited: "That's important, right?"

"Yes, it's very important, congratulations. What about this meeting?"

"What meeting?"

Tseng nodded before dropping the purse into the hand the man was holding out to him.

"Thank you, Johnny."

The offender pocketed his reward and Tseng led him out. He locked the door behind him and immediately took out his PHS. He used the Administrative Research's secure virtual network to connect to the Turks surveillance room. He unrolled the tapes of the cameras covering the activity of the train station in the slums of sector 7; he scrolled through the hours of the day before, until he found what he was looking for.

6:02 p.m.: Cloud Strife was dragging himself effortlessly through the station crowd, Zack's buster sword rasping the ground in his wake. He was collapsing near a small flight of stairs leading to the platform and was remaining there, inert. The young man was looking dead, but passers-by were going about their business without caring about him.

Tseng accelerated the film until Tifa Lockhart arrived.

7:44 pm: She was getting off a train that had entered the station a few moments earlier and was walking down the steps leading to the slums. She was stopping when she noticed the man slumped down near there and was leaning towards him. She was frozing. She was crouching down while putting down her luggage. She was holding Cloud Strife's face in her hands. Long minutes were going by during which she was talking to him, Tseng assumed. Then she was hugging him - no, she was helping him up. Or both? She was helding him with one hand around his waist and they were walking, carrying sword and luggage, until they were lefting the camera range.

Tseng switched cameras; he looked at the images from the camera watching the entrance door in Sector 7. He struggled finding Cloud Strife in the middle of the people rushing through the city, but he eventually recognized his spiky hair in the crowd. When his silhouette cut a hole in the crowd, Tseng paused the image and stared at it in fascination.

Cloud Strife had survived. He had managed to reach Midgar.

Five years earlier, the young man was a unit of the infantry corps of the Shinra Army. His whole life had been turned upside down, because he had had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. According to Cissnei's reports and observations from the pursuers that the company had unleashed on him and Zack, the four years of incubation in the Mako had left him in such a state of mental decay that he had become disabled: Zack had transported and assisted him throughout their escape across the continents. He was a failed experiment, a collateral damage, and there was no risk that he would spread crucial and vital information that could threaten the authority of Shinra. He had nothing of the dangerousness and importance of Zack Fair and for that reason, the company had never cared about him.

Neither did Tseng.

He was thinking back to Johnny's story and was getting more and more confused: if Cloud Strife had so skillfully feigned mental illness for five years, why ruin it now? Why was he pretending to be a SOLDIER 1st class, carrying the most sought-after sign in the middle of Midgar? Why did he give his real name instead of hiding his identity? Was he counting on the company's lack of interest in him - assuming he was well informed about it? Was he counting on a decrease in the state of alert after Zack's death? But who would count on that after the experience he had just had? If a member of the public safety recognized him and warned the authorities, if the president and Heidegger discovered that a man holding some of the company's best-kept secrets was wandering around Midgar, they would send the Turks to him without delay. He couldn't ignore that, could he?

Tseng could see only insanity to explain this aberrant behavior, but as Johnny had sensed, if Barrett Wallace had hired Cloud Strife, it could not have been for anything other than the decisive informations he held about Shinra, and above all, the possibility he had of communicating it. That he had come into contact with a cell of the terrorist organization AVALANCHE was another inconceivable element.

Tifa Lochkart, the manager of the bar where the small group had established its headquarters, had taken the fugitive to her home. The young woman had been a mystery until the Turks discovered her name in the classified file about Nibelheim, of which she was obviously a survivor. Cloud Strife was himself from the town and judging by the reaction and concern Lockhart had shown him the day before, they knew each other.

Rude had been monitoring the group's activities for several weeks and, according to his latest reports, the likelihood that it would strike in the near future was very high. Wasn't the appearance of Cloud Strife a godsend for them, the missing piece to the puzzle of their plans?

All these new, improbable, parameters fitted together in Tseng's mind, drawing unhoped-for roads, at the end of which, always, appeared the face of Rufus Shinra.

_Deus ex machina..._

He contemplated the image on the screen of his PHS, observed the blurred silhouette of Cloud Strife: his outfit, and above all, the buster sword, made him match Zack's description. Despite this, he had passed through the hundreds of Shinra troops deployed the day before and made it safely to Midgar. There he found another survivor from Nibelheim and that person, with whom he shared a common trauma, introduced him to AVALANCHE.

A miracle.

He tried to remember the shy and fearful boy that Zack had become so excited about so quickly. He had seemed so insignificant at the time that he had barely kept the image in his mind; but Zack had protected him for five years, at the risk of his life. And now, Cloud Strife, depositary of Zack Fair's will, was likely to cause the fall of his assassins.

Tseng couldn't help but seeing a sign, and he felt a bitter smile on his lips as he imagined the bright one Zack would offer him if he knew such an idea had occurred to him. He wondered if the SOLDIER and his naive romanticism had rubbed off on him.

Whatever the case, Tseng decided to leave things as they were. His whole body was relaxed, full of serene resolve. He disconnected from the surveillance network, locked his phone and put it in his pocket. He turned around, opened the door.

"Bring in the informant from the Sector 8 slums."

*

_H-4 before the explosion of reactor no.1_

_Sector 5 slums_

Aerith was cutting flowers in her garden and filling a basket with them. Her hair were shining under the sun's rays and the secrets that birds and insects were weaving in the surrounding silence formed a halo around her.

Her house and garden were located in the ripple effect that a small underground river had miraculously created in the arid rock that made up the northwestern part of the continent. This small fertile haven was unique to Midgar and as dug purposefully for Aerith's one person.

Tseng stood crouched at the edge of the small plateau falling into the gorge. It was his preferred vantage point when he came to watch over the young woman. He was totally out in the open, but she never noticed him, too busy as she was sowing the earth with her loving murmurs. In any case, she rarely looked up to the sky.

She didn't like him.

She liked Rude, but liking Rude was easy. She liked Reno too, even though she would never admit it. He was convinced that she would immediately like Elena if they met. But she hated him. His heart tightened.

She had never liked him. From their first meeting, when she was very young, her intuition of Ancient had warned her of the irrevocable darkness that was withering his heart and she had rejected him immediately. She was not the only one responsible for the impassable distance on which their constrained relationship had been built. Tseng was like a black hole in her presence, his darkness too compact; when he approached her and saw the green of her eyes fading, her features deteriorating, her complexion pale, he felt as if he was swallowing her light. It was unbearable.

Her mistrust had grown over the last five years. Of course, she knew nothing about what had happened in Nibelheim, and Tseng had never told her about what had happened to Zack. But her intuition of Ancient was implacable, and she quickly realized that the Turk was hiding the causes of the sudden disappearance of the man she was in love with. Tseng had first been dismayed by the ease with which she pierced through his Turk tricks, before recognizing that there was nothing he could do about it. That was what her power was all about: leafing through the others with her huge eyes, petal after petal, to expose their heart.

The increase in his workload had provided the perfect excuse for him to visit her less regularly. He had increasingly relieved himself of this task on Reno and Rude, for whom watching Aerith was no penance. Although Turks like him, they still radiated a faint glow that Aerith knew how to revive at each of their reunions. Tseng sometimes envied the new glow with which their smiles were adorned when they returned from the Sector 5 slums, regretted that he was himself corrupted beyond all hope for Aerith to be able to make a similar effect on him. He could see how hungry the two partners were for the flame that sparkled down there under the city's toxic fogs, and he willingly sent them to feed on it, as often as possible. Tseng, however, was the only one she agreed to entrust with the letters she wrote for Zack, perhaps because of his connection to the SOLDIER, no matter how tenuous it was. And letter after letter, she despised him a little more.

Aerith stood up and dusted the front of her dress and then, with her colorful basket hanging from her arm, crossed the wooden walkway leading out of her house. Tseng stood up and followed her along the edge of the rocky plateau to the slums, where he chased her over the rooftops.

It had been a year since she had stopped giving him letters to Zack, but Tseng knew that she had not forgotten her lover. The very fact that she continued to go up to the city to sell flowers every day, as Zack wanted her to do, showed how much she was inhabited by his souvenir. How much she suffered from his absence.

Aerith arrived at the small train station in the slums and Tseng jumped to the ground. She was right on time for the departure of the train serving Sector 8's plate. She was on her way to jump into one of the wagons when a child she knew shouted her name. She turned around and waved to him. A huge smile split her face; it shined so much that it cut into Tseng's darkness. The burning pain took his breath away.

And in that flash of pain, he realized that he couldn't tell her Zack Fair was dead. He refused to be responsible for erasing her smile. Above all, he knew that he would be the person to whom she would direct her grief.

He couldn't bear for her to hate him any more than she already did.

*

_H-1 before the explosion of reactor no.1_

_Shinra Tower, third basement, Turks' office_

The train lazily appeared on the screen, drowning the platform at the Sector 1 terminus in a plume of steam, and stopped almost immediately. Moments later, four people emerged from the first wagons - Biggs, Wedge, Rapsberry and Wallace. The first three quickly neutralized the guards on patrol on the platform and then rushed into the station concourse at the urging of their leader. This one turned around and, with a wave of his arm, invited his fourth companion to get off the train.

Then Cloud Strife appeared: he jumped from the roof of one of the wagons and, in an acrobatic move, skillfully landed on the platform slabs. Guards came to meet him and he neutralized them with startling ease. His gestures were technical, his weapon was heavy, but his agility and balance were perfect. He had the nonchalant grace of the most experienced fighters. The Mako had done wonders on the frail boy who had clumsily tried to protect him in Modeoheim years earlier. He hung the buster sword from the magnetic harness he wore on his back: the sword reflected every bit of light that the night was offering, and for a moment it wasn't Cloud Strife that was disappearing inside the station hall, but Zack Fair.

Tseng took his eyes off the tablet and looked at the white sheet of paper with formatted headings on the desk in front of him. Then he grabbed the fountain pen from its base and began to write.

When he finished, he raised his head and met Reno's gaze. His second was sitting cross-legged on the meeting table in front of the desk, his elbow resting on his knee, cheek against his fist. In his left hand he held his rod and a paper. Tseng had been so absorbed in his task that he had not heard him enter. How long had Reno been sitting there watching him? He had been distracted for a few days, his senses were dull and he vaguely thought that this was not a good sign.

"Did you fail in mission?" Reno asked.

"Yes."

Tseng put the pen back on its stand, stamped the letter, folded it carefully, and sealed it. He could feel Reno's piercing gaze on him. Reno had easily guessed the theme of what he was writing by the expression on his face, and Tseng wavered between annoyance and resignation.

Of all the Turks, Reno was the most sensitive to the emotions and moods of those around him. While he did not necessarily understand them, he felt them so vividly that he confused them with his own, and this ability partly explained his unstable, even uncontrollable behavior - he was always too full of everything. Reno was too sharp not to have noticed his chief's mood in the last few days, but Tseng still thought he had managed to keep his mask on. His second in command was making any comments, though, and this unusual tact told Tseng that perhaps he hadn't seemed as indifferent as he would have liked. Was his face so open these days? He sighed.

Reno jumped down from the table and walked to his desk, waving the paper he was holding.

"My report," he said, putting it on the desk. "See ya."

He exited the room and silence prevailed.

Tseng opened one of the drawers in his desk and pulled out the small chest that contained the eighty-nine letters from Aerith. He stroked the polished wood before he blew the small metal latch and lifted the lid, placed his letter against the letter torn and reddened by Zack's blood, and then closed the box. His eyes lingered on it for a few more seconds; then he put the object back in its place and locked the drawer.

Tseng stood up and the whole room began to shake. He glanced at the tablet on his desk; the screen was snowed in. He turned off the tablet, put Reno's report in a cardboard folder and left the room with a cold determination clinging to his heart. He pulled out his PHS and dialed the Vice President's number.

That night was marking the beginning of the fall of Shinra's president.

*

**MISSION REPORT**

**DATE:** _December 10 [ ν ] - εγλ 0007_

**DEPARTMENT: PUBLIC SAFETY**

**SUB-DEPARTMENT: INVESTIGATION SECTOR OF GENERAL AFFAIRS**

**TO: ~~M. HEIDEGGER, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC SAFETY~~** _Zack Fair SOLDIER 1st CLASS_

 **AGENT:** _Tseng, head of the investigation sector of general affairs_

 **REASON:** _mission failure_

_Cloud Strife is alive. Feel the relief of knowing that you've completed your last mission perfectly. I wish I could tell you that I was equally diligent in mine, but you know better than I do that I was not. I barely dare to write that I wish I could have done more to save you, because those words sound like those of a coward and I cannot sully your memory any more by insulting you with my dishonesty. When I think that I have made you my greatest failure, I feel nauseous. To associate you with defeat is my ultimate insult, my curse, and all the excuses in the world cannot exempt me from it._

_Cissnei has disappeared. The warning is clear. This is how far the repercussions of my disaster go. I would take almost some comfort from it, however. After all, it is the logical and predictable continuation of the latest events. How can things stay in place when you're gone? Nothing unexpected, nothing destabilizing about it. Contrary to what is happening as I write this letter. Because the exemplary success of your last mission could turn things upside down in an unexpected way._

_I don't think I ever told you about Rufus Shinra. Oh, of course, you know who the company's vice president is. But do you know that he's the only person in the world who knows my real name?_

_Rufus is a brilliant man, in appearance and in mind. Few people know the true extent of his intelligence, however, because he has a habit of hiding it behind affected candor. He is a hard worker - he even does too much, to my liking. Very active, he travels a lot around the world for business, and speaks seven languages. You both share a devastating charisma and spectacular interpersonal skills, but unlike you, he doesn't thrive in the world. He prefers solitude and silence. He likes to read, he likes to browse through the coffee-table books he collects. He likes pop bubble gum as much as he likes classical music and jazz. He plays the piano sometimes, but he does not master this instrument as much as he would like; on the other hand, he is a skilled dancer. He likes haute couture and I don't remember ever seeing him wear the same outfit twice. He likes to walk in environments stripped of our modern facilities. He likes to look at the sea. And he is all the more fond of all these activities because he rarely has the time to devote himself to them, constrained as he is by his schedule and his projects._

_His undeniable intellectual qualities don't prevent him from being strangely forgetful: he tends to forget the most trivial things, like eating, drinking, sleeping; in the evening, when he takes out his lenses, he doesn't always think about putting on his glasses, even though he is obviously bothered by his myopia. He is as stubborn as a mule; he is unable to stop smoking despite his asthma. Besides, one of his favorite hobbies is making me worried. He is frighteningly reckless and throws himself into battles without hesitation because - and this is another of your commonalities - he doesn't turn away from even the most difficult things. He confronts them with firmness, calm and composure. In fact, it is in these kinds of situations that his exceptional discernment is most striking. His combat skills are baffling. His weapon of choice is the shotgun. While he is solid, trained to withstand the very high recoil of his weapons, he does not have the proven body of a Turk, let alone the over-developed body of a SOLDIER. Moreover, his pulmonary incapacities force him to be sparing with movement to boost his endurance. Thus, his strategy is based on the perfect synchronicity he maintains with his dog Darkstar, one of those military animals_ _that have been genetically modified_ _in Shinra's laboratories - a good girl. She compensates for all her master's shortcomings with her supernatural abilities._

 _Turning every obstacle into a springboard, turning every situation to his advantage: that's how clever he is. He tackles each problem as he does in chess or_ shogi _, games he is fearsome at. He is determined, unwavering, ruthless. He is ambition, honour, pride. He is made for the top only and he will reach it, whatever the price._

_He is destined to rule Midgar._

_He calls me "little fox" because, according to him, I often have a mischievous smile on the face. Is that so? I don't realize it, which, I concede, is not worthy of the leader of the Turks._

_I wonder what nickname he would have given you. On our last call, we were talking about you and I told him how much I was looking forward for you both to meet each other. I can't guarantee that he would have liked you right away but I'm sure you would have finally gotten him to give in to your charms, because that's what you used to do._

_Your laugh was so loud that I can still hear it. I still don't understand how you could laugh like that, when your eyes had seen the worst that human beings can conceive of. You had the incomprehensible ability to distinguish the light into the darkest things. Are you sure that what you saw was not, in fact, a reflection of your own light?_

_What an anomaly you were. Overflowing with ridiculous enthusiasm, chimeric optimism, absurd hope. You were foolish, unreasonable. Irresistible. You were a flame and we were moths in your presence._

_I wish you could have lived in the world that Rufus has been preparing for all these years, that you could have seen the greatness of what he will accomplish. I wish I could have seen you, along with Aerith, making the streets of Neo-Midgar bloom. The sky was shining brightly today. The discrepancy between this sparkling blue that even the fumes from the reactors could not seem to fade and the torment that afflicted me was so strange that I was uncomfortable all day. "How is such a prodigy possible when you are dead? "I wondered. I now feel that your disappearance has set things in motion, and that you will be part of the world to come in a way that no one suspects. I want to believe that today's sky, and Cloud, are proofs of that._

_You understand that we Turks are on probation. If we haven't been dismantled on the spot, it's because we still have one last unfinished mission: Aerith. The President understood that I made you a counter-mission, but he still doesn't know that this is also the case with Aerith, and I intend to keep it that way. You gave me this mission five years ago, and I won't fail this time. I renew my promise to you: no harm will come to her as long as she is under my responsibility._

_Her light will not be extinguished._

_Your friend, Tseng_

**Author's Note:**

> We learn in "On the way to a smile" that Tseng is a very repressed man, tormented by his actions. We also learn the reason of his coldness towards Aerith. In Crisis Core, it is implied that he genuinely likes Zack. Is he too soft here, tho? I felt like he needed to release himself a little, with the letter...  
> I am open to any advice :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
